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About Us

Imladris by Cat Sparsidis

Founded in September 2000 by Anthony Burdge, Heren Istarion: The North East Tolkien Society is officially registered with the Tolkien Society U.K. as a smial or subsidiary/affiliate organization to the Tolkien Society U.K. and a Chartered Group of the Mythopoeic Society. Heren Istarion is an academic literary group dedicated to celebrating the life and works of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams and the promotion and enjoyment of the fantastic, in literature and myth. Heren Istarion is an unincorporated association with the goals of becoming a registered non-profit organization.

In its 10-year history, the society was awarded "Smial of The Year" at The Tolkien Society's Oxonmoot 2002, and successfully organized and hosted all the academic programming at "The Gathering of the Fellowship 2003" in Toronto, Canada and are honored to have been chosen as Programming Directors for The Gathering's 2006 event. Its membership ranges both nationally and internationally. Heren Istarion is proud to have members as far outside New York City as Nashville, Tennessee, and even farther outside the United States as Stockholm, Sweden. The Society develops and hosts Tolkien events around the New York City Area, and publishes a bimonthly journal Parma Nölé. The name Heren Istarion, inspired by Tolkien's Unfinished Tales, means "Order of Wizards" in Sindarin, one of Tolkien's invented Elvish languages.

Anthony S. Burdge and Jessica Burke are Co-chairs, respectively, of Heren Istarion. They regularly collaborate on a range of academic and critical pieces about the life and works of Professor J.R.R Tolkien. They were awarded the 2005 Beyond Bree Award "In recognition of outstanding contribution to the study of JRR Tolkien, from the Readers of 'Beyond Bree'".

• “The Biblical Allusions in the Lord of the Rings.” Stonybrook University (March 2002)

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

2000- present Heren Istarion: Northeast Tolkien Society –SI, NY

(Previously The New York Tolkien Society)

Co-chairman

• Webmaster and Society Founder

2007-2008 Mythopoeic Society—MythCon XXXIX

(Central Connecticut State University

August 15-18, 2008)

Conference Chairman

2002-2006 The Gathering of the Fellowship –Toronto, Canada

Co-Director of Academic Programming North America's largest Tolkien Convention/Conference in 2003

Vice President Director of Programming & Interim Member of the Board of Directors for the 2006 Convention

• Coordinator for all programming at event: includes planning programming (lectures to panels to presentations and events), scheduling and finalizing programming, inviting all guest lecturers, arranging for celebrity guest appearances

ACHIEVEMENTS:

• Mythopoeic Society Starving Scholar Award; MythCon 37 2006

• Beyond Bree Award 2005 “In recognition of outstanding contribution to the study of JRR Tolkien, from the Readers of "Beyond Bree” Newsletter of the JRR Tolkien Special Interest Group of American MENSA

• Smial of the Year Oxonmoot 2002

JESSICA BURKE

EDUCATION

M.A., English, City University of New York, College of Staten Island, 2008